You ask about Bronson Arroyo and you shall receive. So what is up with Arroyo? I was asking the same question the other night when I was thinking about picking him up in my 14-team mixed H2H league. So here is what I do know; he was awesome at the start of the year, but his last three starts have sucked. The main issue is that he seems to have lost his velocity, which makes his fastballs about as fast as his sliders and curveballs. I can tell you that is a very bad thing. Many sites are speculating an undisclosed injury, which makes sense. However, Fantasy411 stated on one of their shows that he is possibly dealing with the same illness that affected Griffey and has Hamilton on the DL. I am not sure what is going on.

Let’s take a look at something of interest from the last two years. I was looking at his stats and noticed that the same kind of blow ups happened over the last two years. In 2006 Arroyo had three games where he gave up six or more earned runs, and five games in 2005. Also, in 2006 he allowed eight or more hits in a game eleven times, and twelve times in 2005. so these kind of bad starts are something that has always happened over the last two years. The difference is that three of them have happened in a row. Usually the bad starts are spread out a lot more, which tends to make them less painful to owners.

Another item that should be considered is the Red’s defense, or lack there of. They have Gonzalez, Freel (when not on DL), and Phillips up the middle. They will not win many gold gloves, if any. Since Arroyo has a track record of allowing hits, his defense is a very integral part of his performance. Add in that he has walked a few more batters this season, and you have a recipe for a struggling pitcher. He currently has a 4.73 ERA and a FIP ERA of 3.82. Most projections had Arroyo having an ERA of 3.80 to 4.00. That means that he is basically on pace, and that this is just a bump in the road. By the way, keep the Red’s defense in mind when you debate about picking up Homer Bailey.

So Arroyo gives up hits, and the Reds defense is very suspect. So is his performance that bad? He is not doing as well as previous years, but he is not that far off pace as a whole. So what should you do? Too be honest, I am really not sure. He may be a good buy low candidate, because of the very week NL Central. However, I don’t think that he will be as dominate this season as he was last year.  I wish I could be more help.